VU meter top level

[andersson]

So I'm fooling around with the skinning abilities and got the hang of how to make the VU meters. I just encountered something that I don't know how to fix. I've got 6 leves, but the 6th never gets activated. It's vertical and consists of 6 "pellets"; 3 red in the bottom followed by 2 blue and one green. So it's the green one that never gets played.

[SLoB]

should get played at some point, bosh the volume to 100

[andersson]

It doesn't. I'm totaly out of ideas on how to fix this.

[pickle]

Yep, blasting the volume should do it.

There used to be a bug where the top level of a VU meter doesn't get shown, but I haven't seen that problem for a couple betas now.

Try copying that top level a couple more times, so there are some duplicates. That will have the effect of requiring a lower volume level to show wanted layer. That's just a stop gap measure though.

Maybe hide every layer but that animation set & see what happens. Maybe it's being covered up? Failing that, you could provide us with a link & we could fiddle with it.

[andersson]

I worked it out. I simply reversed the layers within the set. I don't get why it worked though, since I tried that before.

Maybe a bug? Oh well, it's sorted. Back to skinning.

[pickle]

Did you change the direction of the animation too? By default, animations go down from the topmost layer to the bottommost. Setting the direction() flag can alter that though.

So, reversing the layers will show you the green/blue/red layer first, then the bar should get progressively smaller. If it doesn't then ya - that sounds like a bug.

Cliff put in a cool new feature in the .66/.67 beta (not sure which one) that allows you to set a single layer (in this case you'd use your green/blue/red layer) as a slider object. So, just like how the progress bar is a single layer that gets more & more exposed, you can have that same effect for VU meters.

This will a) cut down on the size & complexity of your skin & b) make the animation much smoother. Unfortunately, it has the downside of a) not being available in the publically available version and b) won't allow you to step at given intervals - ie: you can't have 6 distinct steps. If you can wait to release your skin until the next public release though, I'd recommend it.

[andersson]

Did you change the direction of the animation too? By default, animations go down from the topmost layer to the bottommost. Setting the direction() flag can alter that though.

So, reversing the layers will show you the green/blue/red layer first, then the bar should get progressively smaller. If it doesn't then ya - that sounds like a bug.

No I didn't use he direction()flag, I just reversed the order from 1-6 to 6-1 so to say. Which I tried before as well, but didn't work.

Cliff put in a cool new feature in the .66/.67 beta (not sure which one) that allows you to set a single layer (in this case you'd use your green/blue/red layer) as a slider object. So, just like how the progress bar is a single layer that gets more & more exposed, you can have that same effect for VU meters.

This will a) cut down on the size & complexity of your skin & b) make the animation much smoother. Unfortunately, it has the downside of a) not being available in the publically available version and b) won't allow you to step at given intervals - ie: you can't have 6 distinct steps. If you can wait to release your skin until the next public release though, I'd recommend it.

That actually gave me an idea on how to change the look of them completely but still fitting in.